Peter Stevenson - Ceredigion Folk Tales

Theres one advantage in being poor.

Its very inexpensive.

Ceredigion proverb

Thanks to Declan Flynn and Chris Ogle at The History Press, the National Library of Wales, Emma Lile at the National History Museum at St Fagans, Robin Gwyndaf for allowing access to his archive, Lucy Thomas at the Welsh Books Council, Stuart Evans, Jez Danks, and Anna Evans at Ceredigion Museum, Helen and Anya at Ceredigion Archive, Catrin at the National Sound Archive, the librarians of Ceredigion, Emily Trahair and Planet magazine, Gill Ogden and Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Cecil Sharp House, Fiona Collins, Dafydd Eto and David Moore, Ceri Owen-Jones, Elsa Davies, Iola Billings, Dafydd Wyn Morgan, Mary-Ann Constantine, Valriane Leblond, Bethan Miles, Contis caf, Yarn Storytellers, Delyth and Dafydd at Ty Mawr, Jonathan Davies, Gerald Morgan, Gordon Jones, Mabel Pakenham-Walsh, Chris Grooms, Sue Clow, Michael Freeman, Derek Bryce, Jen Jones and the Welsh Quilt Centre, Tony and Cory Mortis-Wait, Martin at Ystwyth Books, Hazel Thomas at the Peoples Collection Wales, Brian Swaddling, Linda and Sarah in the Print Shop at NLW, Kevin Williams, Peter Jones, Bob the poet, Susan Passmore, Anthony Morris, Alan Hale, and to all the little red mannikins, one-eyed preachers, transvestite ghosts, dyn hysbys, drunken mermaids, mischievous bwcas, headless dogs, two-headed calves, expired elephants and long-nosed fiddlers who have taken the time to indulge a curious gentleman of the road and have invited him to drink water from oak leaves rolled into the shape of a cone.

Myra Evans was born in New Quay in 1883. She was a writer, a storyteller, an illustrator, a mother of six, a linguist, a humanist, a teacher, a collector of music, songs and lullabies, and a singer, although she considered herself more a crow than a canary. She learned fairy tales from her family and friends: from her father Thomas Rees of Glasfryn, her grandfather Rees Rees, and her great grandfather Daniel Williams of Glyngolau; from the old sea captains David Jones of Annie Brocklebank and Captain Davies Loch Shiels and a cobbler, William Evans.

Myra left us a jewel, a collection of fairy tales and local legends, each of them about named people and places, dating from before the 1850s. They are misty memories of local characters, and of farmhouses and cottages, some now in ruins while others have 4x4s on tarmac driveways and Laura Ashley drapes in PVC windows. Often there are caravan parks, though the streams still sing their harmonies to the grey wagtails and the overhanging oak trees.

These stories are of another world, an Otherworld so familiar to the folk of Ceredigion 100 years ago; exotic and enticing, dark and dangerous, curious and comical, a world of the marginalised and misunderstood, of flooded lands and lost languages. A dreamworld.

Myras stories reflect the entwining of the landscape and its people. Telling tales is part of the richness of conversation, language, poetry, humour, metaphor and banter in Ceredigion. Stories were often only known within families or small communities, always told in Welsh at informal gatherings in the kitchen, having first ensured to invite the old farmer who knew all the tittle tattle, and the young woman who played all her taids (grandads) tunes on the fiddle he had given her when she was 5. Along with the storytellers there were singers, musicians, gossips, dancers, poets, quilters, carpenters, preachers and teachers; often they were all the same person. There was the woman with her jars of herbal remedies, and the conjurer, the dyn hysbys, with his recitations, incantations and his book of spells, a source of fear and not a little amusement to many a child. This was a world where every girl and boy were expected from an early age to perform. There were plenty of opportunities at social gatherings: the Noson Lawen, the merry nights in the village halls which celebrated the harvest; the Pilnos, when folk gathered to make rush lights, passing the long night with stories and songs, and the local Eisteddfodau, the annual competitions organised to encourage the creative arts, and to decide who should represent the village at the national event.

The folk poets, y bardd gwylad, were articulate, intelligent, intuitive artists who could express emotions and stories in verse, in strict metre or less formally, giving a voice to those who did not have their command of language. The boys of Cilie farmhouse just north of Llangrannog were well renowned as wordsmiths. Saunders Lewis description of the folk poets applies equally to the storytellers:

The folk poet was a craftsman or farmer who followed his occupation in the area where he was born, who knew all the people in the neighbourhood and who could trace their family connections, who also knew the dialect of his native heath, and every story, event and omen, and who used the traditional social gift of poetry to console a bereaved family, to contribute to the jollifications at a wedding feast, or to record a contretemps with lightly malicious satire. His talent was a normal part of the propriety and entertainment of the Welsh rural society, chronicling its happenings, adorning its walls and its tombstones, recording its characters, its events, its sadness and its joy. It was a craft, the metres, the vocabulary, the praise and the words of courtesy were traditional. It was not expected that it should be different from its kind. It was sufficient that it appropriately followed the pattern The kin of these poets are the mountain birds, the rainbow and the lonely places. They do not marry or give in marriage, they do not quarrel, and do not see their neighbours often enough to be satirical about them.

Cerngoch, a farmer from Bronant at the end of the nineteenth century, divided his work into these categories: nature, love, doorstep, beer, hunting, to persons, memorial, moral, force of habit, hypocrisy, the virtuous woman, religion, trivia and englynion (structured poetry).

These small farming and fishing communities on the windswept fringe of western Britain are not as isolated as some believe. News hawkers, itinerant puppeteers, magic lantern showmen, theatrical troupes, musicians, tramps, travelling menageries, broadsheet and chapbook sellers, seasonal agricultural workers who moved from farm to farm, all of them travellers, brought tales with them. Ships docked along the coast, bringing sailors and smugglers from all over the world, each with a story to tell; the Gypsies settled on either side of the Dyfi estuary and told stories reminiscent of the Arabian Nights or eastern European wonder tales; Margaret Jones, illustrator of Tales from the Mabinogion (ed. Jones, Gwyn & Kevin Crossley-Holland [London: Victor Gollancz, 1984]) performed her puppet shows in her homes in Tre Taliesin and India; a couple of hundred years ago Cornishmen came to work in the lead mines; in the 1930s Italians fleeing poverty came up from South Wales and opened cafes; Poles fled mainland Europe during the war and opened delis; students came from all over the world to study at the universities in Aberystwyth and Lampeter. The county has always been independent and free-thinking, and a few years ago boasted the gay and lesbian capital of Wales. They say of Aberystwyth that most of the country celebrates one queen, whereas Aber celebrates them all. Preachers travelled the land telling tales, much as some storytellers preach. Within the last fifty years the English language storytellers have arrived, following on from the New Age settlers in the early 1970s. They have brought with them new ideas of storytelling as an environmental tool, as performance theatre, as an expression of womens beliefs, and as a means to heal body and soul.